A few posts ago I showed some fingers and some tree roots and mentioned that it’s not the fingers and roots at all but something behind them that I am really interested in. it seems that fingers or roots are not in fact the real subject. The real subject lies within a template that, unconsciously perhaps, I am carrying around as my own personal geiger counter, all the time looking for somewhere to apply it, even weak signals catch my attention.
Above is a photograph that I took when I had a studio in Lister Building in Victoria St, right in the CBD of Auckland. At the time Karen Walker was on the floor above me, she was in the early stages of her career. The building, was filling with alternatives such as film, changing it from the medical building that it had been, although medicals still coexisted and in fact I had much dentistry there, a floor or two above. The surgery had several of my photos on the walls.
I used to walk from my studio down High Street to a yoga school, upstairs, near Unity Books. Janet, one of my favourite instructors agreed to my request to walk back up to my studio and press her hand against a wall. At the time and even now I still marvel at the flexibility of her joints, not a white knuckle to be seen.
Here is an art historical footnote. My old studio is now the workshop of a tailor, Gus McKay, brother of Hamish. I’ve had two suits made there, they’re natty and it’s fun being able to say occasionally that I have to go because I have an appointment with my tailor. Gus’s number is 021 784623. Men and women. Tell him I sent you.